Reporter Chen Yong reported that for the current Chinese professional football league system, the main problem is wage arrears, and in the context of wage arrears, the club's heavy debt crisis (including debt to the group and the club's operating debt) has also affected the healthy development of the professional league.
At present, Chinese football has experienced two salary limits, the first salary limit is that local players have changed from the previous unlimited salary to the limit of 10 million yuan before tax on the total personal salary, and the international football team has risen by 20%; the second salary limit is that the personal salary of local players is capped at 5 million yuan before tax, and the club expenditure limit is 600 million yuan. Although the Chinese Football Association is preparing a third salary limit at the beginning of 2022, further reducing the total expenditure and personal salary ceiling, the relevant regulations have not been introduced, and the existing salary limit policy is currently maintained. This is actually the right choice, and excessive salary restrictions are likely to hit the confidence of young players and their parents in Chinese football.
One reason why the Football Association's latest salary restriction order pressed the pause button is that some clubs have begun to limit their own salary, for example, the total expenditure of many clubs has been controlled at a low level, and it is good to adjust to less than 100 million, and the practice of individual clubs is even more extreme. There is no doubt that it is theoretically more reasonable for clubs to impose voluntary salary limits, and each club has the right to choose its own way of life, choose its own total investment, and choose the salary limit of the players under the club.
However, there is a very important premise for independent salary limitation, that is, respect for rules, respect for contracts, and respect for integrity. Unfortunately, after specific investigation, we learned that some clubs have unfairly suppressed players in the salary restriction process, and even torn up contracts, which is very speechless. The development of Chinese football is ultimately based on building a good integrity system and building a good ecosystem.
After two salary restrictions, Chinese football once faced a third salary limit: after the end of the 2021 season, a new salary limit plan was quietly disclosed, according to this salary limit plan, the salary limit for local players will be adjusted to 3 million yuan before tax, and the expenditure limit will be adjusted to 300 million yuan. In fact, the reporter learned that there is actually a more stringent salary limit plan, but it has not been disclosed, and the reason may be that it has not been recognized by all parties.
But the boots have not landed, this "300 million expenditure limit + 3 million salary limit" salary limit program has not been introduced so far, and the transfer window for the 2022 season has been opened, any club can sign a new contract with the player in accordance with the previous policy, that is, the "5 million salary limit", in this case, from a fair point of view, the 2022 season should not be necessary to introduce a new salary limit policy, and the situation learned by this newspaper also proves this.
In fact, maintaining the status quo is the best choice. From the perspective of regulation, the golden dollar football era is the real use of the salary limit policy, and after the club has a dilemma, in fact, there is no point in limiting the salary, because you do not limit the salary, the club will also limit the salary independently, this time should be to regulate and prevent some investors in the extreme behavior of salary reduction.
So, why does Chinese football have to limit salaries twice? The reason is actually very simple: first, to show the attitude of curbing gold dollar football, and second, some clubs can have a so-called policy basis to reduce the time cost of negotiating with players.
In the reporter's view: the only significance of the previous introduction of the salary limit policy, and now the maintenance of the salary limit policy, is to avoid the next golden dollar football, today many investors have withdrawn or contracted, tomorrow there may be many investors crazy investment again, with the "600 million expenditure limit + 5 million salary limit" This foundation, even if investors increase investment in the future, it will not once again go out of control.
An orderly professional league should look like this: there are clubs that invest heavily, aspire to win league titles and show themselves in continental competitions such as the AFC Champions League; there are clubs that have a stable investment to ensure that they can play well in domestic leagues; and there can also be clubs that invest less and are more willing to use young people. Every club will have its own ideas, its own purposes, its own mode of existence.
Of course, a discussion about the salary limit order is that at present, it is generally believed that the salary limit policy should only retain the total expenditure limit and cancel the individual salary limit, or that the total salary ratio (such as 65%) can be stipulated in the total expenditure, so that the club can flexibly choose the employment plan and incentivize the advanced, otherwise the salary of multiple players is the same, which is a bit of a big pot of rice.
Entering the 2022 season, the club's independent salary reduction, that is, the situation of greatly reducing expenditures, began to appear in a large area, and at present, guangzhou, Hebei, Wuhan, Shenzhen and other clubs have appeared this situation or similar signs, and in the previous season, Dalian people and Hebei have begun similar practices.
When investors have financial difficulties, the club's drastic reduction in expenses is actually a helpless move, because many companies may not realize that they will be in trouble, especially the general predicament of real estate companies has brought a heavy blow to Chinese football.
Investors have begun to cut back significantly, which is also related to the difficulties of promoting equity diversification reforms. In the beginning, many investors pinned their hopes on the reform of equity diversification, hoping that the government or local state-owned enterprises could support the club, but in the past year or so, although some club share reforms have been successfully completed (in fact, some clubs that have completed the stock reform have also had difficulties), but there are also many clubs who have very difficulty in promoting the share reform.
At this point, for these clubs, there may be only two choices they can make, one is to withdraw from the professional league, and the other is to operate the club at low cost. At present, most of the clubs choose the second way, Guangzhou team, Shenzhen team has no sign of disbandment from beginning to end, even the most difficult Hebei football club at present, there is no sign of withdrawal, they also chose to give up most of the mature players and foreign aid, the current retention is young players, according to its current development trend, the new season may only need tens of millions of funds to achieve stable operation.
The development of Chinese football has never been entirely market-oriented, but the market has finally become the invisible hand in this process, as exemplified by the low-cost operation of these clubs in the direction of rejuvenation.
The club's active salary limit is naturally no problem, but in this process, the club has also begun to have many operations that disregard the rules, ignore the contract, and disregard the integrity.
First of all, there is unpaid wages, some clubs are indeed out of money, have to owe wages, but some clubs and their investors are not out of money, but heard the wind of stock reform, thinking that there will be a government or state-owned enterprises in the future, unwilling to spend real money and silver, and began to lie flat.
After the salary arrears, the club is ready to reduce the expenditure, and the relatively reasonable way is to communicate with the players, obtain the understanding of the players, strive to let the players take less of the arrears, and then give the players freedom to leave, or sign a new contract. But in fact, in the process of operation, some clubs have begun a variety of magical operations, such as not allowing players to play, or even not allowing players to participate in training, or through various other means to suppress players and force players to obey.
Even, similar bad behavior has gradually become the consensus of the circle, wage arrears have become justified, tearing up contracts, and once they are arbitrated, they will implement countermeasures or retaliation, still do not pay the arrears of wages, and ignore the arbitration results. In the showdown between capital and the individual, the player as an individual is naturally in the passive beating.
Courageous players speak out on social media, or initiate arbitration, but that doesn't change anything, and in theory the penalty for the clubs involved should be disqualification, but the current environment doesn't allow for that, as only two or three of the 16 clubs in the Chinese Super League in the 2021 season are probably not in arrears.
At present, the Chinese football circle and the Chinese entertainment circle, still holding the players high salaries to say things, to be honest, this is really a very boring thing, indeed, Chinese football has experienced golden dollar football, the national football results are not good, the international football team did once take a high salary that could not match their strength, but this is completely in the past, the 2021 season of the Chinese Super League only two or three clubs do not owe wages, the general salary arrears of players are the mainstream, especially some relatively young players have become victims, It is common to buy a house and find that because of unpaid wages and not being able to pay the mortgage, and having just played in a professional league but not making money, you are forced to find your parents to continue to ask for living expenses. At present, many players are full of pessimism about the future, and even relatively young international-level players are considering retirement, and the veteran players who could have played for another year or two will no longer continue to struggle for their dreams and directly choose to retire.
Such a situation highlights the importance of rules and order, Chinese football should cherish the rules, should pay attention to the construction of the integrity system, only in this way, there will be a restoration of football ecology.
Considering that there are indeed some objective factors in the survival dilemma of the club, the access to the 2022 season cannot be one-size-fits-all according to the rules, and it is always necessary to give each club the time and space to adapt, adjust and solve, but in the future, disregard for the rules, dishonest wage arrears, debt phenomena, and other negative phenomena caused by it must be completely eliminated.